516 Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. [No. 5, 



to maintain a sufficient scour to keep clear its own channel. The 

 result is of course a lake. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the 

 surrounding country to account for the feeder hecoming more power- 

 ful than the stream into which it falls ; it is evidently a result of 

 change of climate, and it is quite certain that if a considerahle body 

 of water was again supplied to the lake, it would speedily overtop 

 its present barrier, cut a channel through it and eventually drain 

 itself, the only requisite being an adequate supply of water to remove 

 the obstructions brought down by its feeders and to maintain a pro- 

 per preponderance of the main stream over its tributaries. To bring 

 about such a state of things, a change of level only is required, such 

 as we know has repeatedly taken place, with its corresponding change 

 in the amount of rain fall ; and the same phenomenon, viz. an elevat- 

 ing movement, which has dwarfed the once mighty inland seas of 

 Ladak by curtailing their supply of rain water, has in some places, 

 owing to peculiar and local circumstances, produced precisely oppo- 

 site phenomena and actually given rise to lakes where none existed 

 before. 



The bottom of the lake is in some places near the shore covered 

 with waving patches of a long grass-like weed ; but I noticed no fish, 

 though I doubt their absence from the lake, as in the stream below 

 it I noticed small fish, though I was unable to secure any, and in the 

 Spiti river I observed fish in water of only 41°. 



Several wild horses or kiangs inhabit the shores of the lake, 

 usually occupying the gravelly plain spread out across its east- 

 ern end, though when alarmed they take to the hills. Burrel are I 

 believe to be got among the hills, and I was told of a flock of ovis 

 amnion which used to frequent the neighbourhood of the lake, but 

 which was driven away some years since by an unusually severe 

 winter and has not been seen since. 



A few old geese and several flocks of goslings just commencing to 

 fly were the only birds I saw. One large flock of goslings I noticed 

 on the side of a high hill, and at sight of me they ascended to a 

 much greater height than I cared to follow them to on a march. A 

 few totani or snippets were seen in a marshy flat at the mouth of the 

 valley, but I was disappointed at the paucity of birds, after the ac- 

 counts I had heard of their abundance. 



IQth, Korzo, 14,450 ft. — The road lies along the west border of the 



